Jokowi
and the fragility of trust
Stephen Lock ; The
writer leads Edelman’s public affairs team across Southeast Asia
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JAKARTA
POST, 07 Februari 2015
The election of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and his new
government last year appeared to usher in a new chapter for Indonesia, one of
optimism about the future, what the country can achieve and what its new
political leaders could mean for the country’s future.
This optimism was captured in the results of this year’s
Edelman Trust Barometer. This is the firm’s 15th annual global trust and
credibility survey and the seventh year it has been conducted in Indonesia.
The survey looks at trust across business, government,
media and NGOs.
The research surveyed 1,000 people from the general public
in Indonesia, plus an additional 200 “informed public” (top quartile income,
college educated and self-identifying as active media consumers); as part of
the overall 33,000 people surveyed in 27 countries.
Our most striking result shows that trust among
Indonesians toward “government in general” increased 16 percent from our 2014
results to 65 percent among the general population (the highest ever) and
even more so among informed publics; a 19 percent increase up to 72 percent.
But clearly popular sentiment in trust toward President
Jokowi has changed radically in recent weeks: this is confirmed by our 15
years of data that shows that trust is fragile; and public trust in
government changes radically in the months before, during and following an
election.
Even the new popular President is not immune from scandal,
which could pull the large trust rise in government back down. The recent
negative popular outcry Jokowi has endured over his mishandling of the
proposed chief of police is just but one example of how high expectations can
once again give way to cynicism and distrust (the appointment of the new
attorney general was another; giving a sense that Jokowi is “weak” on human
rights and justice policy, says the “left”).
President Jokowi, with his reputation for clean
governance, has now been embroiled in his first major scandal with pointed
questions over whether he is succumbing to party pressures and Indonesia’s
old political patronage to maintain continued party support. So there may
even be the possibility that our Trust survey captured “peak Jokowi”.
He presently faces brickbats from the social liberal left
— his core supporter base — and he is still yet to achieve an effective modus
operandi with the DPR (House of Representatives) in which his coalition
currently only controls a minority.
It will be telling to see if this is current opinion poll
slump will translate into lower levels of trust more broadly over the year
ahead.
In other findings, our results show that Indonesia
continues to be one of the most trusting countries in the world, ranking
third globally, with a Trust Index ranking of 67 percent among general
public.
The Trust Index is an average of a country’s trust in the
institutions of government, business, media and NGOs.
Trust in business continues to be at an all-time high,
even increasing from last year, up 2 percent to 84 percent.
This is the joint second highest in the world showing
that, for Indonesia, business continues to maintain its license to lead on
debate about how to deliver progress and prosperity; playing a central,
trusted role in developing Indonesia.
This gives a tremendous opportunity for business leaders
to drive and comment on public policy. For instance, CEOs are more trusted in
Indonesia than the global average, by a 15 percent margin (56 percent in
Indonesia are trusted vs. 41 percent globally); and as idea starters, CEO
content creators have a 75 percent trust ranking in Indonesia, compared to 46
percent globally.
Noteworthy this year, which again looks to be driven by
the recent parliamentary and presidential elections, is a decline we see in
Indonesians’ trust toward “traditional media” (defined in our survey as
mainstream media sources, such as newspapers, magazines, TV and radio news)
down 5 percent this year.
The recent presidential election was the closest and most
polarizing Indonesia has so far seen, with some media groups often obviously
favoring candidates with highly partisan coverage, apparently at the behest
of their proprietors.
The “black campaigns” that came to surface during the
presidential election may account for the fall in trust that Indonesians said
they have for traditional media. This fall is not calamitous; can be reversed
and may be closely tied to the electoral cycle; but it is a sign that
reformasi and public trust is not the media’s birthright.
With increasing use and considerably higher trust
Indonesians say they have in online search over traditional media), equally
this year our survey showed that Indonesian’s trust in social media — where
of course many journalists are personally very influential — is apparently
now close to eclipsing mainstream media.
A consistent theme from our results this year show that
trust cannot be taken for granted. For the government, if Indonesians fail to
see tangible change (or perceive the government once again entangled in the
same kind of repeated scandals that embroiled the previous administration),
patience and any trust advantage will fade away, fast.
Worse still, a failure of Jokowi to deliver may well lead
to something more dangerous; a disenchantment with the democratic process
itself.
There is no greater error than to judge Indonesia through
a filter of issues with binary answers but our survey results this year show
the power of trust, but also how fleeting it can be. ●
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